Adventures on a Budget

Monday, June 4, 2012

Days 56 - 61: We Finally Get to Jess's: Portsmouth & Newport, RI, Part I

So after a fantastic week with John and Anna in Hyde Park...

We finally made it to Jess and Dave's in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Better late than never!

Their house is awesome, we "hung" out in the front yard quite a bit.

They also live near some polo fields...

with really old barns.

These fantastic stone walls are all over the place and we've noticed that there's also a bunch of old graves everywhere. Some of the graves date from the 1700's....people have been up here for a long time!

Dave's daughter, Lily, has several pets, including Clyde the Turtle. Kipper really liked Clyde and kept an eye on him when Clyde got outside time.

Speaking of Lily, here she is!

On Memorial Day, we all went to an awesome party...

with the biggest bounce house ever rented!

It was a two-house party: neighbors Scott & Janeane and Rob & Patty (sorry about any name spelling errors!)...

Scott!

and Rob, who happens to be from New Orleans, and boiled up two batches of crawfish!

Dave, Jess, mystery party goer, and myself up to our elbows in mud bugs.

Rob had these shipped in from Louisiana! We felt right at home.

Kipper? Would you like some mudbugs?

Scott let us take out his boat for a little lake cruise. It's a cool boat, basically a wave runner surrounded by an inflatable cocoon.

The party was quite a sight from the water!

Back at Jess's, Kipper, Clyde, and Stella the Cat co-habitate....

.....or not....

We had some great meals at Jess and Dave's. These yummy scallops are thanks to Chef Dave!

Portsmouth is just a few miles from Newport so we did some sight seeing there, of course.

This is "Cliff Walk".

Cliff Walk is a path that runs past all the palacial mansions that served as vacation homes for the New York rich at the turn of the century, such as the Vanderbilts.

This is the Breakers, another huge monstrosity from the Gilded Age.

The homes had quite a view.

Meanwhile, back at Jess and Dave's....

Did I mention Jess has a classic full-size Galaga machine!?!

And of course Angie and Jess (and Kipper) had to watch Footloose.

Tuesday, after Memorial Day, Scott was nice enough to take us out on this magnificent Morris M36. It's for sale if you're in the market for a boat or he can get one built for you...

Scott even let us steer!

As long as we were already in Newport to sail, we picked up some fresh lobster for dinner. The pets did not know what to make of these things!

But it didn't matter for long...

Dave cooked them to perfection and gave us a lesson on getting to the good stuff. That pretty lady in the picture behind Dave is Jess's mom, Nancy!

After several great days, we headed out to the Cape so that Jess could get some work done but we will be back...

After enjoying our time in St. Louis, we headed south to Memphis to visit... Graceland! Elvis was only 22 when he purchased the col...

Travel Wisdom by Paul Theroux

You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time. Travel is not merely the business of being bone-idle, but also an elaborate bumming evasion, allowing us to call attention to ourselves with our conspicuous absence while we intrude upon other people’s privacy - being actively offensive as fugitive freeloaders.

Life Wisdom by Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

About

We met many many moons ago in Austin, TX (please don't move there). Angie went to UT and worked in non-profits as a program manager. Greg worked in various fields and played the drums. We lived, we worked, we laughed, we played. Then, in 2011, one of us had a birthday that didn't sit well and convinced the other one to quit her job and travel the U.S. in a tiny (TINY) RV with our dog. The other one went along with it because, what the heck else was she to do? and packed up the TINY RV with their not-so-tiny dog and they traveled for a year. 43 U.S. states and 7 Canadian provinces later, we're still together and now both are 110% sold on the travel thing. In 2015, we bought another camper van. And our adventures continue, with the same three characters. The end goal? Not so much a goal as an idea. Maybe there will be some sailing involved. Definitely other countries. Hopefully, Panama...